cgolf1

I am always bummed to see we miss out on the rough seas. Our Hawaii cruise was a blast with up to 30+ foot seas. They left the forward pool open most days and the water level varied roughly +- 3 feet and we had our own wave pool. I slept like a baby on that trip.

Back when we sailed Disney, there were folks saying one of there older ships should be scrapped due to some rust on the railings on the promenade deck, a stain or two on the wall and the stateroom bathrooms looking a little dated an worn, it was ridiculous. We had a retreat level room once on a newer ship that had latches in our room that were broken and our response to each other was people on such and such board would scrap the ship;) I am dreading the response to my next review as the changes impact us little so I will likely end up in the happy camp. We do have a couple of nights in the OVC as of right now, so they will see comments from us on the comment card. I will say that I ignore the ignore feature because some of the folks that really annoyed me leading up to the early edge sailings have provided very helpful information since then.

I honestly don't know how to answer this other than when I do my thrifty cruiser reviews I give an honest opinion from my eyes of what I thought the product was. That said my eyes will overlook some things when it may come to the condition of the ship etc. We have been extremely happy with the product on our Edge and Constellation cruises. We will see what our next Edge cruise brings and you can count on seeing another thrifty cruiser review. I just take it as all our eyes our different and we see and are bothered by different things.

When we were on Disney we were told the chef was excited to make the dishes for me and showcase some food from home. Overall that was probably the best week of MDR food I have had on a cruise ship. It just will depend on if the Celebrity chefs have the same freedom as Disney chefs, where during an MDR lunch they even made me proper fried chicken.

We definetly do that and Celebrity has been amazing working with me and one of the reasons we sail them almost exclusively. We do look at Royal as well but they aren't as good with the gluten free thing.

Being gluten free I need to pre order my meals. On Disney I had heard that you could order Indian dishes so I tried it and the dish I got was amazing. Then for the rest of the trip regardless of what I ordered I also got an Indian main dish every night. One of the chefs was from India and was more than happy to make the dishes for me. Is this possible on Celebrity? I love Indian food and generally only get it when I am cruising because my wife is not a fan.

Reading some of the comments on these topics brings me back to when I joined this board being excited about our first trip on the Edge and the comments thrown at that ship were pretty bad as well. I probably got a black eye with many of you lol. I think this will shake out once everyone gets onboard and Celebrity will probably tweak it too. Seeing many comments on the more positive side of thing noting of course where they need to make changes in habits due to the cuts once they get onboard. That said that is normal all businesses and they all evolve over time. Some will leave and many will roll with the cuts. Sorry just in a reflective mood today:)

I forgot about the smoking thing. While we do like many aspects about Royal, one thing we hated was the trivia was always in the bar next to the casino and we skipped it a few times because the smoke scent really bothered my wife. Also walking through the casino was a no go.

Yes I have found things as well that would be questionable that I have passed on, but in general it is way better than other lines. I am guessing I am not Celiac because in two Celebrity cruises the buffet hasn't got to me yet.

Thank you for your trip report. We loved the Connie and have family boarding today and they followed your trip report as this is their first Celebrity cruise.

Reading all these threads and with our next trip deciding whether or not we keep sailing Celebrity, I am wondering what they still do that would keep you with Celebrity even with the cutbacks? For me it is how they handle the gluten free dishes. They have been very accommodating in the MDR by modifying dishes so that I could enjoy them similar to Disney. Royal unfortunately was not as good at this. The game changer for me was the buffet with the cards above that specify the allergens. I am for sure gluten intolerant and not sure if I am celiac. This allowed me to eat at the buffet like a normal human being. On Royal or Disney I would need to ask for a chef to walk me around and explain what I could eat. The bummer was that I had to wait for them and my wife would be done eating when I finally was served so I would need to rush eating to be on to the next thing. This for me is worth putting up with a few cutbacks, and the 2025 cruise we have booked we felt was at a fair price. That said if the cutbacks really do impact our experience we won't hesitate to try something new.

I see a lot of negative comments on here and also on other social groups I belong too. In fact on the other groups people are actually regularly complaining about the negativity. As for you tube negative videos are there, but outnumbered big time by more positive videos. I would still say other lines are getting way more bad videos than Celebrity whether they deserve it or not. Will be interesting to see if that trend continues. We will be deciding for ourselves soon enough and if the product meets our needs we will continue to sale Celebrity. That will bother some because we are accepting that they are changing the product, but we honestly worry about the time we have on board. If they change something we don’t like we will be gone. We learned a lot with our breaking up with Disney cruises and their is a right time for everyone when they break the tie to a particular line.

We are fully expecting to lose our move up bid to try an infinite veranda room from an inside to see if we like that style on the Edge. Back when we originally went on the edge we could have upgraded after going to guest services, but ended up not doing it. What I am curious is if anyone has tried this once onboard and noted the upgrade cost and how it compared to the move up bid price scale?

It is funny that this thread got me to want to try prime rib again only to know it will likely not be an option on my next sailing this year. Time will tell or it will be on a night we are in the OVC because we didn’t have a reservation 😉

Our last cruise on the Connie was all in about 140 per person per night and we had some of the best food we personally have had on a cruise ship. Way better than Disney. Thanks to promos we ended up with zero out of pocket costs except for some extra cash tips for the staff and bartenders. That said we aren’t foodies so our food opinions may not count for much. IMO Ruth Chris is overrated, give me a WI supper club steak:)

Those chairs were great. It was funny though that last Feb, with under 600 people onboard we could only use these at night. Chair right next to the pool anytime of the day no problem, these chairs were saved by 6:30 or 7 in the morning by the same people each day. Really enjoying your trip report.

I think the next 6 months will be interesting. We will be deciding for ourselves once onboard and also get a preview with family that sail before us. Then we will see if we end up booking on a different line for 2025. Unless something goes off the rails we will be keeping our Galapagos cruise in 2024 which is a bucket list trip for us and doing it while relatively young, 50. Actually interested to see how it goes, I may get to watch the train wreck that you can't look away from or we will have a fantastic time. Our last trip with Disney it was really obvious it was time to move on so maybe that will happen here.

We are really thrifty, and sail insides by choice and haven't done upcharge dining in a long time and even then it was once a trip for a higher end brunch we liked on Disney. We tried retreat level rooms on Disney and found that much attention wasn't for us. We are happy being thrifty even though we don't need to anymore. We just like to hang out and relax and forget about the stresses of work. I am sure the cruise lines hate us lol. We spent money on the ships early on, but many cruises in no longer feel the need to. That and I will give Disney props the merchandise was pretty cool. If the MDR food becomes inedible we will find a new line. Of all years to try the buffet at night this was our year for 3 of our 11 nights. Time will tell if that will work or if we will be back in the mdr.

I like @mnocketpost because it sums up what we went through with Disney cruises when we left for Royal. We were very disappointed and angry with DCL for them chipping away at benefits we liked and used and for really increasing their prices. We sailed retreat level and one year they decided to double the cost to rebook the next year, and 5 years later when we priced them out an Oceanview was roughly what we paid for retreat level lol. I was all over the DCL board complaining as were others at the time. Fast forward to now, we will sail soon and see what it looks like when we are on board. If the product is acceptable we will likely keep the 2025 cruise we booked and if it is unacceptable to us we will move on. Disney taught me a lot, but I do see differences here and I will give Celebrity a bit to figure things out. Disney was about emptying everyone's wallets, while right now with inflation and what lines went through during the pandemic I will tolerate a bit more, but won't hesitate to pull the plug if it goes to far. But yes, it will be a decision on how the cutbacks impact us specifically thing when we decide our future cruises. So I do empathize with many of you as we have been there before, now we are just kind of indifferent to the brand loyalty thing.

Wow funny how our brains can totally read and in gnome misspelled words.

Actually all three lines have done a great job with this. I honestly trust cruise ships more than land restaurants.

I won’t complain with that brand as the soy sauce is made in WI along with the grassland butter.

Pizza we now to special order and the gluten free crust they have is very good. Thanks for the heads up on the soy sauce. I don't believe I have had it in there because I do a lot of Indian food because I don't get it at home, but I will be on the look out. GF soy sauce isn't really all that expensive. We got some of the Kroger brand that I believe is GF, but it is a tough one to find in general.

The only difference is the OVC they best guess the amount of food they need to make for the night where it isn't made to order. While the main dining rooms aren't 100% made to order Celebrity is much more flexible than say RCCL or even Disney. On Celebrity I have changed my mind night of what I wanted, I preorder for gluten free and they can make edits to get me the new dish. Also something new for us is we asked then to only say bring out the chicken and no sides and they are the first line we have had do exactly that. So while they provision for what they thin people will order in the MDR, I am not convinced they cook everything up every night.

We have sailed a full E class ship and had no issues. The ship had a good flow and with 6 dining rooms, 4 free and the Aqua and Suite options none of the food venues were really all that packed. Last time we sailed an inside room, this time we may end up in an infinite veranda, will see. We don't do the bars, but did notice the martini bar was oddly shaped with not a lot of seating in the area because of the design, so could see some issues for some. For the video, I was interested in the oceanview and was glad they zoomed in on a lot of the cards to see that they did have gluten free options I could do. It was both better and worse than I expected if that makes sense. We have 3 nights we don't have an early reservation, if we end up not getting one, that may work for us after all.